Castaway

After feeling like a castaway due to spending a few weeks on a secluded beach in Mexico. I awoke one day with an idea of walking the entire bay and picking up trash. The strange bit of this adventure was the amount of shoes that I found. It was interesting that I never came across pairs, only a single lone shoe missing its twin.After collection two grocery bags full.

I thought it would be a good idea to make them into some form of art before I threw them into the garbage.Mimicking the palm leaf shapes casting shadows on the ground, I ordered the shoes largest to smallest creating my "found object art piece" Here's the photo of my work!I'm still a bit bewildered by how many shoes are washed up on shore when compared to other trash items. I think that this provides a bit of a lesson to all of us. Please check your shoes to be sure they are a snug fit, or leave them with your towel.

The ocean has a way of taking them and never giving them back.

10:50 AM
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A lot of worry for what?

I am a mental slave to my own self. All the worry and stress I am just simply done with. Our financial situation has been precarious for some time but so what? It's just numbers on someone's balance sheet. My worth is not in this world.I have one week left in Florida before returning to Beantown and I really can see the changes in our life as I look back at the last three weeks.I just don't care to see people as much anymore because time is so precious. I want to see the ones I really care deeply about; the friends and family who I know will continue to be in my life even though I live 2,000 miles away.I miss the things and even the close relationships that have changed... people are growing up, starting new schools and jobs, getting married, and don't like to reminisce as much as I do... alas the movement of life is too forward for me at times.One good thing is that we'll be having some loved ones visit us up north very soon. Memories shall be made and fun will be had.I know I'm where I'm supposed to be and I know God will provide like always... Enough worry.I'm just going to start punching my worry in the face.

10:35 AM
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I wanna be a cowboy or just a cowgirl would do

Several week ago, I bought 2 tickets to see Jamey Johnson & Randy Houser in concert. Both RD and I were very excited. He has been gone to a lot of rodeos and stuff lately and with me having neck surgery - I was not up to travel much.
I was so excited about date night! I mean see the boy everyday but every now and then you just wanted dress up and go do something fun. Well the plans were made.... and then they were broken.
RD went to a rodeo Friday night and his good friend Terry (a bull stock contractor) had to leave. RD had to stay and make sure the bulls were alright and that they got bucked at Saturday's rodeo.
So no concert for us. Luckily, one of my friends bought the tickets from me.
So I went shopping and bought myself a few early birthday presents :)
2 pair of jeans... one of which is a skinny jean. I finally found a pair that do not make me look like the side of a barn from behind. Haha.. I'm sure yall got a good laugh out of picturing that!
1 shirt.. gray in color. Dark gray... almost black. I got my Momma the same shirt in blue for Christmas.
I bought Maddy a bunch of fun goodies from Claire's for her birthday.
Some body splash... I have been wanted some more for some time.. like 2 years to be exact.
2 pair of tights... one gray in color & one black in color without feet.
2 SEC Championship shirts... black in color and they look really good! REALLY GOOD.

10:33 AM
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Long Vacation

After a long vacation (3 weeks!), I am back at work at lab, back in the studio for both practice and teaching, and back at the computer to blog. I can't believe how fast it went, it seems like maybe it was a dream that I snapped awake from so quickly that it doesn't seem real, like it is fading in the distance. Ok, enough romanticizing about the holidays...


Monday was my first day back at both jobs. Finally had students in my Monday night class, after changing it to Hatha Level 1, from Ashtanga-Vinyasa Fusion. Monday nights at 7:30 pm is a little late I guess to market a hot, sweaty, full-o-cardio, kind of practice. Although I think the real kicker was that a very established teacher was doing a dynamic flow in the class before mine, and there had never been a class after. So we move on to Hatha 1 for now, which was really fun to teach.

My practice has felt like a calico cat lately, with patchwork contributions from everywhere. FitTV, Anusara, Ashtanga, Sivananda, Iyengar, etc. It has been really fun just finding my way. However, I do crave structure and progress, and answering to a regular teacher has always forced me to stick with it. Which is why I fell in love with Ashtanga in the first place. I've heard people say that if you are a Pitta, Type A personality, that you will naturally align with Ashtanga, but what you really need is a practice to balance out the Pitta, like a restorative type. I can't tell if me being ok with being away from a daily mysore, or even led, ashtanga practice is a function of me seeking what I am needing, or if it is a function of my personality changing. And I'm falling into a style of practice that matches my constitution, rather than complementing it...

3:01 PM
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My Take on the Iphone

As everyone knows, the iPhone is an amazing device -- just not a great phone, which is due to unreliable service. That's the only reason I switched. And I was kind of worried about the experience I'd have with a Droid from Verizon. So instead of talking about the iPhone, I'm going to focus on my experience with the (motorola) droid -- in the context of being a former iPhone user.


Also, these are just impressions -- not scientific testing with a stop watch. But I think after over a decade in web dev, I can make observations about a device that are qualitatively valid, if not totally rigorous.

Looks
First, the device itself looks okay -- not beautiful like the iphone, but certainly not hideous. The are certainly better and worse-looking smart phones out there. And it's kind of heavy, most likely due to the hard keyboard that slides out.

Screen
Big, bright and sensitive (like me!). Seriously, it's just as nice, if not nicer than the iphone screen, which I thought was amazing.

OS
Android is really nice. It borrows a lot of the simplicity of the iphone, with some nice added features like a top status you can pull down for details on your alerts.

Email
It's great -- but I'm only using Gmail right now. In fact, the whole google suite (cal, docs, search) is pretty killer.

Browser
Great -- can't really tell the difference between its performance and the safari's. Oddly, it doesn't feel like Chrome (google's browser for computers).

Phone calls
No doubt, in my experience, Droid crushes the iphone. No dropped calls (yet) vs. 6 out of 10 calls dropped with iphone (for me).

Keyboard and Autocomplete
Honestly, the soft keyboards are similar. A couple nice things on droid include a .com and @ symbol on the default keyboard. There's also a hard keyboard -- but I'm not really using it. The soft one is fine -- and, the big news, the autocomplete is wonderful! Suggestions appear right above where you type -- not in the sentence like on iphone -- and the it's learning my vocabulary really fast.

Battery
iPhone wasn't great, and the Droid is just as poor, if not worse. Had a backup battery for the iphone, and now I have one for the Droid.

Apps
I was a huge apps user, and that's where my biggest fear was. It was unfounded. The android marketplace is great. Haven't missed one app.

Camera
Droid camera is ridiculously awesome. 5mp. Video. Flash. Really, really nice. I was amazed by how good the iphone camera was, and I'm blown away by the droid.

Music
I was bumming about having to have a separate ipod. Then I found an app called doubletwist that syncs a droid with itunes with absolutely no hassles.

Buttons
The Droid has added something I think is awesome: a back button right on the case. At first I wasn't sure I would use it, but it really comes in handy. Back has definitely become a standard move for users, and it makes total sense to have that on the phone.

So that's where I'm at in my assessment. More to come...

2:51 PM
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